when did you see your first ghost?

[liberalitch]

There was this dilapidated old house on an extremely beautiful piece of land
A point of the water in Norfolk Va.(you know that it has been torn down and developed in the 29 years since this happened)
it had been abandoned and was falling apart.
Sometimes us kids would play in the yard, on the porch and the really brave older kids used to sometimes break inside.

One fabulous fall afternoon as the sun was declining, my buddies and I were playing in the yard. The rest of the kids were in the front of the house. And I ran around back.... I don't remember why.

as I came around the corner of the house I saw a woman standing in the kitchen window. She was black, maybe late teens/early twenties. She had on an apron and a red and white calico blouse, her head was "wrapped" in a scarf. She had a towel or cloth in her hands and she was gazing out the window on to the water. She had the saddest look on her face... like she wanted to be somewhere or someone else.
I was frozen.... I looked at her for what seemed like forever, then she faded away.

As a child I understood that I had seen something supernatural, but I did not understand the ESSENCE of what I saw. I didn't understand what (slave/domestic servant.... oppressed black woman) she was or how she felt.... until I was much older.

I have seen more since, but that's weird too

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. When I was little

and I stayed in my Grandfather's house I would hear my late Grandmother working at her sewing machine in the room next to mine late at night. Other people did too. I didn't SEE a ghost until I was older.

[liberalitch]

18. Wow! Were you disturbed or comforted by the sound?

... and when you saw one.... when where?

[fertilizeonarbusto]

31. Very comforted

I saw the other one in an old house in Lansdale, Pa. where my aunt and uncle lived. He was dark, wearing 1880's-cut clothes, a gold watch, a Derby, a moustache and a VERY SCARY expression on his face. My aunt saw him a few times and hated his guts. They eventually moved from there because of him.

[mahina]

2. I didn't see him but he shook my bed violently.

We had moved to Cambridge Mass. for school, and somebody didn't want me in that room. It happened about a dozen times in the three years we lived there. Tooooo spooooky! The basement was super creepy, the house was from the mid 1800's and that guy was a real meany.
I was just a kid. I sometimes want to write to the current residents and ask if they have anything like that happening today.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

4. The ghost in my aunt's house

that I saw was a real evil fucker like that. *shudder*

[liberalitch]

19. Why don't you write them?

[mahina]

24. Don't want to upset anyone, wondering if it was personal.

Seriously how would you feel if you got a letter like that?
Either if he was or wasn't still hassling people?

[liberalitch]

32. I've always been a bit odd.....

so I would have been intrigued

[datasuspect]

3. when i was about 5 years old

we had a malevolent spirit in our house. it would write on walls, mirrors, windows and leave hideous, obscene, horrifying messages.

one time, when my parents were putting me in bed, they pulled back the covers and found finely ground glass all over the blankets. there was all kinds of poltergeist type activity: wake up in the middle of night to the sounds of forks and knives being dumped out on the kitchen floor, t.v. turning on and off. furniture being moved, object being thrown, crosses would end up inverted.

we didn't have very much money and tried to figure out what was happening, so we wouldn't have to spend non-existent money to move.

anyway, they ended up calling my dad's mother's friend who was a cuandera (a type of witch doctor who practiced this black magic form of catholicism: complete with candles of alien saints, invocations to other malevolent spirits to dislodge the current one, entreaties to the virgen de guadelupe, jesus, spraying magic sprays, sacrificing chickens, you name it).

my parents finally moved us out when my brother woke up with x-shaped incisions all over his abdomen.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

5. Most curanderas

do not practice black magic. And they tend to shy away from evil spirits, as that is VERY dangerous.

[datasuspect]

7. not most

but many do.

especially when they do hexes, and especially adherents of santa muerte - a resurgent cult in mexico

[fertilizeonarbusto]

11. some do, you are right.

They usually die pretty horribly and most smart ones avoid that shit. Interesting culture, isn't it? I've been having such lousy luck lately, I've been looking for one to bless me some water so I can take a holy water bath (Yes, you that know my atheistic tendencies, my luck has been THAT bad), but I'm the Latino desert called Pittsburgh...

[histohoney]

10. Some do

You want to put a curse on some one, I know about 3 in Brownsville TX and 2 in Santa Fe NM.

I wouldn't use them though, things come back to you in the end.

[datasuspect]

12. except the ones

that tinker with forms of santeria.

i've been to specialty shops where they still have these candles that represent entities that look like aliens but are considered saints.

something like using demons to work for you. and then having the BVM sweep it all away.

very weird.

[fertilizeonarbusto]

16. Santeria

comes in black and white varieties too.

[mahina]

25. Holy smokes

that's the creepiest story I ever heard. How is your brother?

[datasuspect]

28. he's okay

has a wife and kid now.

[liberalitch]

34. do you guys ever discuss it?

[datasuspect]

36. no

never.

[histohoney]

6. I was in college

and I was working late on the flats for a production in the old Alma Thomas theater at S.U. (Southwestern University in Georgetown,TX.)
It was late and I was looking around for my boyfriend so we could go get something to eat. We were the only ones left in the theater area.

I walked off stage left and down the stairs calling out Ed's name. I saw a tall figure over at the call-back board in a coat. I ran up to the figure, got a blast of cold, and ran right through it!

I didn't scream, just looked around and got out fast. I found Edmund outside spray-painting and told him what had happened. "Oh yea, we got about three ghosts here, non of them will hurt you." Edmund reported.

I always made it a point to say "Hello Friends", when I went in to the theater alone, felt cold spells from time to time but never saw anyone again.

Moved into a house with a VERY active but nice ghosty about 5 yrs ago. Thats another story.;-)

[fertilizeonarbusto]

9. I worked in a 1920's

movie theater for years. We had a friendly ghost there, too.

[histohoney]

14. Maybe

they're entertained?

[fertilizeonarbusto]

15. Could be!

We thought he liked comedies, because he was most noticeable when we were playing one.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. 1999

[liberalitch]

21. Now you know I want specifics...

[mahina]

23. Ghost Dog!

Have to see that again...my all time favorite is Down By Law.

[liberalitch]

35. Toss up between Night on Earth and...

deadman

[mahina]

38. Whoa...DU Jim Jarmusch fan club-

cool.

[DS1]

13. I'm not dead yet

My ghost has yet to appear :evilgrin:

[ronnykmarshall]

17. When I got home from work.

[liberalitch]

22. At least it's a clean, neatly dressed ghost...

wow.... i dodn't even Iron and I'm still living

[texas1928]

20. When I was about 10 years of age.

our ghost in our house came walking into my room, as I was getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I thought it was my sister, but she had her hand up to her face and she looked really worried. I asked what was wrong and she did not say anything and so I reached out to touch her on the shoulder and as my hand was about to touch her she faded away in front of me.

[liberalitch]

27. That's wild...

did you ever have any indication who this person was or what may have happened in your house?

[texas1928]

29. It was the orininal owner of the house.

She died in the hospital, and she was very old. I saw a picture of her when she was older and the woman who walked into the room was the same person just younger. I saw her many times and she played tricks and made noises and you would see her or the black shadow thing move out of the corner of your eye all the time. I am the only one in the family that ever saw her full on. She appeared to me three times. She and I made eye contact more than once. My sister was playing the piano one day and looked over her shoulder and she saw the silhouette of a woman standing behind her and no one was there.

[lazarus]

26. What's your definition of "ghost"?

If it's supernatural, I haven't seen one. Oddly enough, ghosts must not like me, because I've been to places ghosts supposedly "haunt", and they disappeared.

Funny, I have the same effect on psychics, card readers, etc. The supernatural just doesn't work around me.

Hmm....

[liberalitch]

30. Some people is and some people ain't "recievers"

By ghost I mean a "presence" that is unexplained
any more is too difficult to put into words

[lazarus]

39. Then I never have seen one

or anything else 'supernatural'.

[RandomKoolzip]

33. Ghosts don't exist.

[liberalitch]

37. Never seen one eh?

Oh, well